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The International Court of Justice (ICJ), located in The Hague, is one of six main organs of the United Nations. The ICJ’s role is to settle legal disputes submitted by member (or other approved) states and to act as a legal adviser. Difficulties encumber the ICJ’s function as a true international tribunal, most importantly because states party to a dispute must submit to the authority of the court.
Popularly known as the World Court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is one of the six main organs of the United Nations. As the U.N.’s principal judicial organ, it is the successor to the Permanent Court of International Justice, which was formally dissolved in 1946. The ICJ operates on the legal basis of Chapter VI of the U.N. Charter, which concerns peaceful settlement of disputes, and the Statute of the International Court of Justice, which is an integral part of the U.N. Charter. All 191 member states of the United Nations are ipso facto parties to the Statute, but nonmembers may become parties as well if approved by the General Assembly and the Security Council.
Located in The Hague, the Netherlands, the Court is composed of fifteen judges elected for nine years (five being elected every three years), with the possibility of being reelected by the General Assembly and the Security Council. Candidates for ICJ judgeships are nominated by national groups in states, and are elected as individuals regardless of their nationality, although no two judges may be nationals from the same state. By tradition, the permanent members of the Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) have judges elected to the court, although China had no judge during the period from 1960 to 1984, due to the controversy over Taiwan and China’s representation in the U.N.
Since the ICJ functions as an institution that interprets and applies law, it possesses certain advantages over other methods of dispute settlement. For one, the Court operates on a continuous basis, so it is always prepared to deal with disputes. For another, it contributes to the development of a shared body of legal rules, both substantive and procedural, through which differences between states can be resolved. In this regard, both disputant states must voluntarily consent to appear before the Court, judgments are binding, and there is no appeal. Since 1946 the Court has entered 144 cases into its General List, many of which concerned disputes over contentious issues, among them land frontiers and maritime boundaries, territorial sovereignty, the nonuse of force, noninterference in the internal affairs of states, diplomatic relations, hostage-taking, the right of asylum, nationality, guardianship, rights of passage, and economic rights. Importantly, nearly all these decisions were accepted and implemented by the participating states. In fact, more states are submitting more cases to the ICJ than ever before, with fourteen on the court’s docket in 2009. The ICJ may also render advisory opinions at the request of any of the other five organs of the United Nations, or the sixteen specialized agencies under the Economic and Social Council in the U.N. system. That competence is used to advise the requesting organ on the legal status of questions (as in the case put forward in 1985 by the U.N. General Assembly on the lawfulness of nuclear weapons) or to declare a legal opinion on the issue in question. Since 1946 the Court has rendered twenty-four advisory opinions on a wide variety of issues, such as admission to United Nations membership, reparation for injuries suffered in the service of the United Nations, the territorial status of South-West Africa (Namibia) and Western Sahara, the status of judgments rendered by international administrative tribunals, expenses of certain United Nations operations, the applicability of the United Nations Headquarters Agreement, the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, and the lawful status of the wall being constructed by Israel to separate that state from Palestinian territory.
Certain difficulties still encumber the ability of the ICJ to function as a true international tribunal. Most important is that states party to a dispute must be willing to submit to the authority of the Court. In that regard, there still exists a fundamental problem of mistrust. Not all U.N. member states are mandated to appear before the Court. Some, including the United States, have reserved the right to make final judgment on whether the case involves their domestic jurisdiction, which means in effect that they can refuse to accept jurisdiction. The ICJ only retains that jurisdiction which governments are willing to grant to it in each case. Such a restrictive tendency diminishes the role that the World Court can play in resolving major political conflicts between states. The uncertainty of legal rulings, a paucity of legislative institutions with the authority to adjust legal rules to the changing international milieu, and the lack of organized judicial procedures for the enforcement of judgments all contribute to the reluctance to use the ICJ as an instrument for international dispute settlement.
Bibliography:
- Franck, T. A. (1986). Judging the world court. London: Allen & Unwin.
- International Court of Justice website. (2009). Retrieved July 27, 2016, from http://www.icj-cij.org/
- Lowe, V. (Ed.). (2007). Fifty years on the International Court of Justice: Essays in honour of Sir Robert Jennings. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
- Riddell, A. & Plant, B. (2009). Evidence before the International Court of Justice. London: British Institute of Comparative and International Law.
- Scott, J. B. (2009). The status of the International Court of Justice. BiblioLife
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